My Emerald Valentine
by Wilona Riva
Summary: "I still have that Valentine's card you sent me," Danny mused at he sat down beside his girlfriend on the hill watching the sun set.
1. Of All

My Emerald Valentine

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, just the plot to this story and its sisters.

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><p><em>This takes between <em>_**Last Thing I Remembered **__and after __**Poor Flower, Poor Heart. **__The poem is called "I Still Love You" by Leilani. Next chapter will be up on Saturday._

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><p><strong>Of All<strong>

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><p><em>Of all the things I've ever said,<em>  
><em>Of all the tears I've ever shed,<em>  
><em>Of all the things I did to you,<em>  
><em>I want you to know that I still love you.<em>

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><p>"I still have that Valentine's card you sent me," Danny mused at he sat down beside his girlfriend on the hill watching the sun set.<p>

"Magic is a girl's best kept secret," Ember murmured, as he sniffed her perfume. "That tickles, Phantom."

"I know," he chuckled. "Remember when we first met?"

"Formally or informally?"

"Formally," he replied. "It was during my first month when my parents found out and made an agreement with Desiree. I still don't know what they wished for. No one will tell me anything."

"Have you thought perhaps it may be because if they tell you, it will void the price of the bargain?" Ember said, punching him lightly in the shoulder.

"Meh," Danny said, waving her off, earning a punch in the other shoulder for his effort.

"So what did you do with the Valentine?" Ember asked him.

He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I thought it was trick of the light, where it keeps changing my name back and forth between my forms. Mom examined every inch of it, but couldn't figure out how it worked. I really am dense at times."

"Well, it did take you what..." came the teasing taunt he'd been expecting.

"Aw, come on, Ember!"

"I'll drop only if you tell me what really happened between your meeting with Walker, Bullet, and the Time Master when you ran away from home," she said.

Danny blew a puff of air, causing his white bangs to lift slightly from the small current. "Fine. How about we meet tomorrow after school and I'll tell you the whole story."

"Where?"

"At Valerie's."

"Why the huntress' place?"

"Neutral zone."

"Deal," she said, rising to her feet with a small smile on her lips. "Danny?"

"Yes, Emb-?!"

Ember smirked slightly inwardly. Catching Phantom off-guard was just as intrinsically rewarding as fighting along him in the field. She leaned forward and nipped his nose with her teeth. "I love you, you darned clueless halfa."

"I love you too, Flame," he whispered, wrapping his arms around her.

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><p><em>Of all the days we fought and cried,<em>  
><em>Of all the days I wished I'd died,<em>  
><em>Of all the things you did to pull me through,<em>  
><em>I don't believe it, but I still love you.<em>


	2. Valerie

My Emerald Valentine

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, just the plot to this story and its sisters.

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><p>She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.<br>I am important to her. She comes and goes.

-Sylvia Plath, "Mirror"

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><p><strong>Valerie<strong>

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><p><strong>(From Chpt 10 of "Last Thing I Remembered")<strong>

_"Jazz, you sure this is a good idea?" Phantom asked his sister, as they stood on the threshold of the Fenton Portal._

_"Yes, Danny, for the last time," she told him, running her fingers through his hair, trying to make him look more presentable. "This was a bargain Mom and Dad made with Desiree, that wish-granting ghost I told you about."_

_"Yeah," he grumbled. "Walker told me about her."_

_"So are you ready to come home?" she asked him._

_"As ready as I'll ever be," he muttered._

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><p>"Hey, Val," Danny greeted her, poking his head through the ceiling. "Is now a good time to come in?"<p>

"I'm still mad at you," the dark-skinned girl said laconically. "What's up?"

"Needed to get away from the house," said the ghost boy, wrinkling his nose like a rabbit. "And I am not a bunny!" he added, voice rising over her laughter.

"Keep telling yourself that," she said giggling. "So where's your girlfriend?"

"She's-"

"- right behind you," Ember finished. "So what held you up, Dipstick?"

"Mr. Lancer wanted to do a refresher course to make sure I was caught up to par with everyone else. Even with your help, Valerie, I'm not sure I'm ready to go back to school. Dash probably wants payback for all the times he's missed out wailing on me," Danny replied. "Now, I take it you two wanted to know where I've been for the last two months?"

"We know you were in the Ghost Zone at the Clockwork Chronos' tower," Ember reminded him. "I was there when he had you ambush Plasmius' newest protegé." She nodded in Valerie's direction.

"Yeah, well, with me 'out of the way', so to speak," Phantom replied, "Plasmius tried to off my dad. I, barely, was able to stop him in time."

"How did you meet Plasmius?" Valerie asked, settling back in her chair for the story.

"It was a week after Jazz and my parents made a bargain with Desiree; the details of which I still haven't been told yet," he began, his emerald eyes half closing at the remembrance.

_"Danny, we're going to Wisconsin!" Jack shouted, waving around a stylized card with a few strange Greek letters and what appeared to be the initials V and M in the bottom right corner. "Oh, the days when Vladdie and I had fun experimenting in the lab and messing with your mother."_

_"Huh?" Danny asked, turning around. "What are you talking about, Dad?"_

_"We're going to Wisconsin for our college reunion. Pack a suit and lots of ghost hunting gear," his father advised, teal eyes alight with fervor. "Got to go and waylay Jazzerincess before your mother does."_

_Danny blinked. __**What the heck is going on and who the h-e-double hockey sticks is Vladdie? **_

_A note fell out of his history book. _

_**"Phantom, go flying. It was inevitable that you two would meet."**_

_**- Clockwork**_

"It was about that time," Danny said, bringing back to the present, "that I ran into Ember who was on a job from Walker to catch three snooping Yiddish ecto-avians, who were talking to themselves and trying to identify some poor bloke in a faded, torn photograph."

"Who you recognized as your incompetent father; I still can't believe those idiots didn't realize you worked for Walker when they stopped to ask you for directions," Ember chortled.

"Tell me about it," Danny laughed. "Bullet wasn't too thrilled when he interrupted Mr. Lancer's tutoring session to give me Walker's latest assignment."

"You never told me that part," Valerie commented.

"Yeah, well..."

"Keep going," Ember interjected. "Continue the story."

_"My parents thought it was a really good idea at the time to recruit Mr. Lancer so that someone at school would be clued in to my dual identity. I was forbidden to tell Sam and Tucker what was going on; my parents didn't want them getting involved in my 'after-school job.' As far as I know, they still believe the cover story Jazz gave them to explain away my disappearance._

_"Okay, Mr. Fenton, just two more, then you can call it quits for this evening," Mr. Lancer told his pale-faced young pupil. "And literature is good for you; you should eat it with every meal you take."_

_"Reading 'Rebecca' is one thing," I tried to argue. " 'Taming of the Shrew' is quite another!"_

_"You seemed to enjoy it when we read 'Romeo and Juliet' in class," Mr. Lancer countered._

_"I had to in order to know how to act around Prince Aragon," I snapped. "I still can't believe I had to wear that ridiculous get-up."_

_"Phantom," Bullet said, a second before my ghost-sense went off and I shivered. "No time to talk. Walker has a mission of the upmost importance."_

_"What?" I exclaimed, automatically shifting forms._

_"Plasmius has disrupted the timeline and sent a human huntress on your tail months before the stupid guard dog was to accidentally trash her father's new security defenses," Bullet said, grabbing my arm and phasing us both up into the air. "That's all the Clockwork Chronos has been permitted to tell me. Find her and bring her in."_

_"A human?"_

_"No humans in the Ghost Zone apart from halfas," came the sharp reply. "How many times have Walker and I explained that to you?"_

_"A dozen and a half," I retorted. "Couldn't you have just used the normal mode of communication?"_

_"No," came the reply. "Plasmius may be watching."_

_I sighed in frustration, but agreed. We both phased back into the room. I gave Mr. Lancer an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, but my boss requires my presence on an assignment."_

_"That's quite alright, Mr. Fenton," he said, shaking slightly with fear. "Rainbow Valley, but I doubt I'll ever get used to this strange comings and goings."_

_"So long as they're not during school hours, I doubt you'll object," I muttered. "Thanks, Mr. Lancer. See you Wednesday." I didn't wait for his reply and phased straight through the floor, following Bullet into the lab, where I took back my human form, just in time to avoid the stupid censors of my parents' new security portal protocol._

_"Mom, going into the Ghost Zone!" I called to her over the noise of the tiny electric saw she was using to cut up some scrap metal for whatever new invention she and Dad were going on._

_"Alright, Danny," she said, waving me away. "Back by dinner time."_

_"Or I'll eat at Ember's," I told her._

"You should really try my stroganoff," Ember whispered to Valerie. "Sorry, Danny, go on."

_"We're leaving tomorrow, Danny, for Wisconsin," she reminded me, turning around and shutting off the saw. "Here, let me open that for you." Dad apparently had forgotten to encode my ecto-signature into the button which activated the doors he'd recently installed on the portal._

_"Thanks, Mom," I told her, giving her a hug. "I'm sorry for all the trouble I've given you."_

_"You've learned how to use your ecto-ray and can clean the lab in half the time it used to take you," she joked. "That's thanks enough."_

_"Phantom, get your butt over here and let's go!" Bullet shouted from over by the portal._

"I know very well the story doesn't end there," Valerie said, folding her arms. "What did you do before you met up with me?"

"Walker and the Time Master made me swear on Pariah's sarcophagus not to tell any one," Danny replied. "That's about as sacred as you can get a ghost to swear without mentioning the River Styx."

"True," Ember agreed, cutting off Valerie's protest. "Why don't you skip ahead to wear you were spying on Valerie."

_In one of the highest trees of the clearing in the phantom forest, on the Isle of Stars, the Red Huntress watched her mark try to shape a glowing sphere of green light into a slender pointed rod, with a lasso on one end._

_"What is that supposed to be?" she heard the older pirate ghost demand._

_"A catch pole," the ghost kid replied. "I watched a dog catcher use one on a stray they caught yesterday in the alley behind my house. Figure I could use it on Bertrand, if he ever comes back for the manual on genetics he left behind when he visited the Sanctuary two weeks ago."_

_Bullet chuckled, then frowned. "I noticed the hunters have still not resumed your education. Are they still afraid of what you may accomplish with your gifts?"_

_Valerie watched the catch pole flicker and return to the sphere her mark then reabsorbed into his palm. Emerald eyes downcast, he smirked. "Gotcha," he murmured, as something heavy fell on her, knocking her out._

"I never did find out what you dropped on me," Valerie grumbled.

"A trap that Skulker charges a hefty fee and Walker will fine you to kingdom come after he skins you alive if you're caught with it," Danny replied, echoing the smirk he wore that day. "You activated it with your breath; it had a delay timer on the switch. Walker's given me a sentence of 5 years, with weekends off for good behavior."

"Pretty light compared to what he gave me when I stole that lasso from that Wonder Woman chick to show off to Skulker," Ember teased.

"Rule No. 67: You do not take tools of the trade from mortal magic users," Danny recited, waving a finger in a half-circle as he did so. "You may, however, borrow from them if there is no other visible means nearby. Consequences are as follows: ..."

"Shut up," she snapped, as Valerie giggled at their antics. "You too."

"Valerie, is everything all right up there?" came the voice of Damon Grey.

"Fine," she hollered back, hobbling to the half-open door. "Just watching some funny web videos on YouTube."

"Alright," came the muffled response.

"That was close," she whispered, trying to silently stifle her laughter.

"You can read the rest of the report in the Warden's files," Danny told Ember. "Needless to say, Plasmius knows I exist and work for Walker. Valerie is on probation and was hired for a trial basis not extend past 10 years from now. Bullet placed us as a team here in Amity Park, with two other teams out in London and Beijing to handle spiritual problems that crop up from time to time."

"Danny, you never did tell me what your homecoming was like," Ember said, fishing for another story.

"I'll tell you tomorrow," he answered. "Nasty Burger sound okay to both of you?"

"Sounds fine," Valerie answered. "Now, get out of my room, spooks. I've got homework to do. See you tomorrow at school, Danny."

Danny face failed. "See you tomorrow," he replied, dreading the up-coming meeting with Sam and Tucker, and the reintroduction to Dash's fist.

"I've enlisted some help," Ember said. "It was Valerie's idea based on a local legend she knew. I'll introduce you to him tomorrow. The dumb blond jock won't dare lay a hand on you after tomorrow, Phantom. I promise."

"Thank you both," he told Valerie and Ember. "I really appreciate friends like you."

"Go home, Danny. That's what friends are for," Valerie told him. "Good night."

"Good night," he replied, as Ember teleported them out of her tiny apartment bedroom.

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><p>Author's Note: Well, originally I was going to use the episode "Prisoners of Love" to tie in a oneshot explaining elements of <strong>Poor Flower, Poor Heart<strong> and **Last Thing I Remembered**, but this story has a mind of its own, so sorry if that was what you guys were expecting. So as for the timeline of this story: Danny ran away from home when his parents discovered he was half-ghost at the end of LTIR, so this story takes place before and after PFPH. He was in the Ghost Zone for two months, then came home and was tutored by Mr. Lancer for another month, before his parents deemed him safe to go back to school. I wanted Valerie to be teamed up with Danny earlier in the series for a reason, thus she had to know his secret. I'll tell the how and why of it in a later chapter. Yes, Sam and Tucker will be confronting Danny next chapter, but they will not be as strong friends they are in the series.


	3. Sisters

My Emerald Valentine

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, just the plot to this story and its sisters. The poem "One Sister Have I In Our House" is by Emily Dickinson.

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><p><strong>Sisters<strong>

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><p><em>One Sister have I in our house,<em>  
><em>And one, a hedge away.<em>  
><em>There's only one recorded,<em>  
><em>But both belong to me.<em>

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><p>"Your eyes are green," his sister said, pointing a fork in his direction.<p>

"Good morning to you too," he grumbled, watching a green soft-yolked egg fall of her fork. "Mom's experimenting with ecto-plasm again?"

"I guess," his sister mumbled. "I'll make you some."

"No thanks," Danny answered, "I'll make some toast instead."

"I thought you hated toast?"

"Walker's new rule," said her brother. "Try something you don't like; toast won't kill you. I'll take the remainder of the eggs to Walker after school. Did Mom or Dad contaminate anything else in the fridge?"

Jazz gestured at the fridge. "See for yourself."

Danny opened the fridge.

_"Vive la revolution!"_

"I see what you mean," he replied, pouring himself a glass of milk.

_"A vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire."_

"Le genie est une longue patience," Danny replied, replacing the milk jug on the shelf where'd he retrieved it from. The commander of the ecto-weenies saluted him. Danny shut the door and noticed Jazz beaming at him.

"Not bad," she told him. "Corneille and Buffon. You have been doing some reading."

"More like travelling," he replied, popping in two slices of bread into the toaster.

"You lead an exciting life, little brother."

"Rien ne pèse tant que un secret," he retorted.

"Shut up, Danny," Jazz said, flinging the last bit of her green egg at him.

"Yummy," he said, catching it in his mouth. Jazz had good aim in food fights, but really sucked with the thermos. Jazz had been told his secret on Walker's orders, so that the whole family could work together as one unit to protect it.

The doorbell rang as the toast popped up. He looked over at Jazz concerned.

"They're blue," she reassured him.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Last thing he wanted to deal with this morning was _that_.

"DANNY!"

Danny winced as Sam's voice screamed his name. There were times and there were times when he cursed his newly sensitive ears.

"Sam! My eardrums," he protested, as she grabbed him into a bone-jarring hug. "We were so worried. What happened to you?"

"I got a job about a month ago working for a ghost, who owns a shipping business. You've briefly got to meet the Underboss, Bullet. Unfortunately, I absorbed a bit too much of the ectoplasm around me, so the ghosts made a deal with my parents to help train me to expel the excess energy."

"How much ectoplasm?" Tucker asked, green eyes wide, noting the glowing fridge.

"Try on the molecular level," Danny replied, slipping out of Sam's grasp. "Strange things are going to happen around me for a while still. My eyes may change color depending on my mood and I, may, even turn into a ghost at times. So, please, don't tell anyone."

Sam's finger snapped. "So that's what you were trying to hide. We saw you change forms."

"Dude, by now, you know you can trust us with anything," Tucker added.

"Yes, my boy can," Mr. Fenton's booming voice said from the doorway of the lab, "but if this gets out beyond the small knit group of supporters he has, Danny may be in a lot of hot water. Speaking of which..."

"I'm meeting Ember and Valerie at the Nasty Burger after school," Danny interrupted. "I'll come home an hour after that and get my chores and homework done. I'll have to spend tonight in Zone to begin my sentence. Walker's orders."

"Be home by 4:00pm, sweetie, and let Mr. Lancer know if you have to leave early," Maddie interjected, slipping past her husband's burly frame to give her son a kiss on the cheek. "I'll pack a small bag for you. See you when you get home."

"Aw, Mom!"

"Hours of the Clock, Phantom."

"Aw, Bullet!"

"Where the heck did he come from?!" Tucker yelped.

"That is none of your concern, Mr. Foley," a second ghost, one unknown to Sam and Tucker, but well-known to everyone else in the room, smoothly replied, as the dark flames accompanying his teleportation died away.

"Plasmius," Danny said coolly, "what do you want?"

"To talk, Little Badger; just to talk."

"I'm late for school."

"You have a few minutes to spare," Bullet advised, cutting in between the two half-ghosts. "Hear him out, Phantom."

Phantom's blue eyes flashed an eerie acid green color. This wasn't her best friend anymore, Sam decided. "Talk," he ordered.

"With pleasure, Daniel," the vampirish ghost said, showing just a hint of fangs.


	4. the children

My Emerald Valentine

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, just the plot to this story and its sisters. The poem "Where the Sidewalk Ends" belongs to Shel Silverstein.

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><p><em><strong>The children. they know<strong>_

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><p><em>Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,<em>  
><em>And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,<em>  
><em>For the children, they mark, and the children, they know<em>  
><em>The place where the sidewalk ends. <em>

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><p>"What did Plasmius have to say?" Walker asked, straightening up in his chair the moment Phantom walked in the door with Bullet.<p>

"Hello to you too," Phantom retorted, giving him a dark glare.

"Phantom," Bullet warned.

"Fine," Phantom grumbled. "He offered to teach me."

"That's it?" Walker asked, a bit confused. "For once, he's actually playing by the rules?"

"It would seem," Bullet said, shaking his head. "I'll go and get Phantom set up in the Ghost Writer's cell."

"Right," Walker muttered, still wondering what to make of Phantom's brief statement. "Back here before light's out, Phantom. No antagonizing Skulker and be nice to the Lunch Lady. And absolutely, NO WISHING."

"Ember brought in Spectra and Desiree. Spectra made a wish that Desiree had to grant; Ember's currently sporting the worst sort of angst a teenage ghost girl can suffer from," Bullet explained as they walked down a dimly lit corridor, emerald and gold lava orbs glowing in the wall's recessed sockets. "You can talk to her for just a minute, Phantom, then it's to your cell you go."

"Alright," he agreed.

The tiny room Ember had been ushered into barely held a table, two bunk beds held up by heavy iron chains bound to the wall, and an earthenware jar. She was laying down on the top bunk, one leg crossed over the other reading one of the fifty million back issues of Rolling Stones magazines that Walker kept in a secret cache in his desk drawer. Danny only he knew this, because he and Ember had gone looking for a couple of pieces of chalk to make an outline so as to frame the Box Ghost for attempted murder of a jelly bean. Apparently Rule #90 is the Rule Book was: The crime for murder of a jelly bean or to attempt to kill one is a week's worth of cleaning a ghost hunter's house. Walker's favorite candies were jelly beans.

"Geez!" Danny exclaimed, looking around Ember's cell. "He doesn't even give you a toilet?"

"I'm a ghost, lover boy," Ember replied, flipping the page in her magazine. "You're a bit late."

"Plasmius, Lancer, and my mother," he said. "Not necessarily in that order either."

"I'll take your word for it."

"So what did Desiree do?"

Ember pointed at the earthenware jar. "Turned my guitar into a set of maracas."

Danny snorted back slightly, trying not to laugh at the mental imagery of Ember, the hard-rock guitar-playing goddess, reduced to playing a child's set of maracas. "Sorry," he apologized.

Her mouth twitched slightly into a brief smile. "Good night, dipstick."

"Night," he replied. "My emerald valentine."


End file.
